


Drown

by bushierbrows (wingbones)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 09:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingbones/pseuds/bushierbrows
Summary: They never talked about the war.





	Drown

**Author's Note:**

> another one-word prompt fill from tumblr! i wasn't intending to write something this sad initially but once i got the thought in my head i decided i was not going to suffer alone, so here it is lmao.

They never talked about the war. 

Most days Lee could avoid even thinking about it. The memory lay dormant in his mind, a heavy but silent weight in his subconscious, yet it made itself known in the changes that came after. His stationary, always a neat fixture at the corner of his desk, now expanded to cover half its surface. His outbound letters trebled, and the three chuunin that worked alternating shifts in the mail room came to know him well as he awaited the responses from his dear friends in Konoha, corporeal reminders that they were fine. His closet was getting rather cluttered but he couldn’t stand to throw them away. 

Sometimes, when the day was done and he and Gaara were settling in for the night, he'd press himself under the blankets as if he could sink completely into them. His partner, sitting up with a sheaf of papers or a book, would see Lee's hand beginning to peek out from under the sheets and reach out, curling their fingers together. When he woke the next day Gaara would be in the same position as the night before, hands still laced together, and it soothed some of the nervous vibration inside of him even as he felt terribly for the burden. 

He never asked and Lee never told, but he knew. In the deep, synergistic way they knew each other where words weren't needed. It was preferable that way. He didn't want to talk about it, it was hard enough to just live through it, swallowing the bitterness of his grief. He didn't want to ask and contend with the misplaced shame he felt whenever he put his need for help into words. 

Whatever he needed, Gaara provided without question, and that was enough. 

It'd been a rough year for him mentally and emotionally; he moved to Suna two years ago and the homesickness was always present, as much as he enjoyed Wind Country and its stoic, passionate citizens. It was nice to finally do away with the long distance side of his relationship, too, and in that way he was for the first time truly happy. He wasn't expecting the guilt, though, that followed him everywhere and soured the tender moments between himself and Gaara. Every smile felt like a betrayal, every warm bloom in his heart something someone else deserved. 

Why was he allowed to have this when Neji never could? He wondered, sometimes, if he'd lived if they would—

He tried not to think about that either. It felt like treachery to think about what they used to have, what he had now with Gaara. It wasn't a secret, not intentionally; like everything else he would rather suppress it than face his pain bald-faced, and as a result it just never came up. Lee knew he would have to admit it eventually but it was easier to keep putting it off and pushing it away, and through that he bore the weight of even more guilt. 

A week before the anniversary of Neji's death, something inside him finally gave way. He sat on the couch with his eyes on the smooth stone floor, hands slack on his knees. He heard Gaara's soft footfalls, his shadow thrown over Lee's legs; a cup of tea materialized at the corner of his vision and he took it, fingers curling around the warm ceramic. Steam rose in a lazy scrawl. He stared at his own reflection in the depths and wasn't sure if he recognized what he saw there. 

"I think I will pay Konoha a visit," he said. His voice sounded far away to his own ears. 

Gaara sat down next to him, set his own cup on the table. "You should." He reached out, rested his hand on Lee's knee; the warmth of his skin was more grounding than the tea, but it had a uniquely acrid aftertaste. You are making him worry, he thought. You are a terrible lover, a terrible friend. A traitor. 

The fingers on his knee tightened a little, and he wondered what in his face betrayed his thoughts. Lee was never good at subterfuge, even emotional subterfuge, but sometimes it seemed like Gaara just _knew,_ like he could taste the sadness in the air. 

"Do you want me to come with you?" Gaara was watching him and his expression hadn't changed much but Lee was good at reading him too. He was concerned, had been for a while. It hadn't escaped his notice how Gaara lately preferred to bring his work home, that even in the dead of night when he couldn't sleep he stayed propped up next to Lee and never once let go of his hand. 

He'd bent enough of his life around Lee and his silent, desperate grief and he didn't think he could bear that shame anymore. "No. You have enough to do." 

"I can reschedule, or Temari could-" But Lee was already shaking his head. A deep furrow formed between Gaara's eyes. 

"Really, I'll be fine, I promise." He reached out to smooth away the frown on his lover's face, hoping he'd schooled his own expression into something resembling reassurance - resembling sanity. "I'll be with Tenten and Gai-sensei. Only for a couple of days, then I'll be back." 

Gaara’s frown stayed firmly in place, and he didn't look remotely pacified. He opened his mouth to argue further.

"Please," Lee said. Please don't argue, please don't ask, please let me do this. His voice cracked a little. 

It was rare for Lee to make requests, rarer still to beg. Gaara looked even more worried than before but he gave a reluctant nod; he took the teacup, forgotten and beginning to tip dangerously to one side in Lee’s hands, and set it on the table next to his own. He wrapped Lee up in a hug and Lee tucked his chin over the jut of his shoulder and held in his tears. Gaara trusted him and loved him, did everything he could to support him, and Lee wasn’t even telling him the truth. 

“I love you,” Gaara murmured into his hair. He echoed it shakily, looking at the opposing wall and not quite seeing it. 

He packed his bag that night. The next morning Gaara slipped a bento box into his backpack and held him close, laying a kiss on his forehead, the tip of his nose, his lips. “Be safe,” he said, and that could mean many things: no pushing his limits to arrive early as he often did, no unnecessary risks, no fighting battles that didn’t need fighting. Gaara used it to broadly cover such topics all the time.

This time, Lee thought it might mean _take care of yourself_.

“I will.” He kissed Gaara again, and it hurt to leave but it hurt to stay, too.

For once, he didn’t rush his trip back to Konoha. It took three days, a full day longer than he was used to, but he couldn’t force himself to go any faster. It was quiet across the desert, quiet when he reached the fields and still quiet when the treeline swallowed him up. It was home, but now more than ever it felt like returning to a home that’d burned to the ground, memories and heirlooms and happiness swallowed up by flames and spit out into ash. He stopped to rest under a massive oak as the sun’s rays began to bleed dusky colors across the sky, swathed in cold shadow and utter desolation.

He wasn’t hungry but he knew he should be, he’d regret his lack of appetite later. He unzipped his bag and pulled out the bento box, balancing it on his knees and opening the lid. The smell of curry filled his nose; he snapped his chopsticks, gearing up for the struggle of refueling an unwilling belly, when his eye caught on the smallest compartment and the object within it.

Lee picked it up, held it in his palm. It was a lotus blossom made from a paper napkin, every crease and fold carefully arranged. He could imagine his beloved bent intently over the kitchen counter, teeth caught on his bottom lip and pressing every ounce of his affection into the paper, all the words he struggled to say lovingly tucked into every fold.

He was glad to be alone, no one around to see the way his mind at last crumbled as he slumped over his knees and sobbed. 

Somewhere between then and dawn he fell asleep, and when he woke to cricks in his neck and a face that was dry but rubbed raw with salt, he put the curry away untouched. Before he left his resting place he tucked the lotus into the pouch at his hip. There was no safer place to store it; inevitably, jostling against his kunai and supplies, it would end up crushed. If he had Gaara’s mind for poetry he might’ve thought it was a good metaphor.

The rest of his journey was a dizzy, dissociated blur. In retrospect he didn’t recall arriving, one minute in the woods and the next at the gate, greeted warmly by the shinobi manning it. Lee tried to manipulate his muscles into his usual beaming grin, felt it sit oddly on his face and earn a vaguely concerned look from the guard. 

He was rather tired of seeing the echoes of that expression on everyone around him lately, but he reminded himself that it was nice that people cared.

"Hokage-sama just came by with Gai to check the logs," the guard said. "They were heading back to the office, I'm sure you can still catch them." He said those last words with an amused lilt - Lee could cross the entire village in only a few minutes, there was no one he couldn't catch. 

"Thank you." He padded down the street, but for once his first visit would not be his sensei. No doubt he'd hear of Lee's arrival and track him down, a harried Kakashi in tow, though until then he had a little bit of time. 

The cemetery was hushed but for the faint tinkle of bells in the breeze, at current unoccupied. He walked down the immaculate rows, gaze catching on familiar names etched in stone; a long sward of grass bearing the remains and memories of the victims of war. At its head was Neji's tombstone, flat and reflecting the mild sun, half-shaded by the heavy bough of a blooming cherry tree. 

He dropped in front of it, brushing away the stray blushed petals that'd landed on the smooth stone. He reached into his bag for the incense and his hands shook as he lit it. 

It was so quiet. Peaceful, but it didn't feel that way now, only a somber echo of the silence of the grave. His hands clenched and unclenched in his lap, staring through the curling smoke at the etched kanji, unsure of what was going on inside of him but it felt like a storm, tearing winds that threw him about and ripped him to shreds. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered. It was all he could think to say, all he could really think at all.

The breeze offered no answer but the rustle of branches. Tears spilled out for the second time in as many days and Lee did nothing to stave them off, until his vision was swimming and his face was hot and damp. 

"Lee." 

He startled, spun around to look. Gaara was standing a few rows away, watching him. At once he tried to brush his tears away, though he wasn't sure why he was trying to hide it at this point. 

"Gaara. I-" 

"You told me not to come, I know." Gaara approached and sat next to him in front of the headstone. "But I couldn't leave you by yourself." 

He must've left Suna right after Lee did, to be here already. Lee wondered how long he managed to hold out before succumbing to his concern, or if he'd agreed to let him go alone with the intent of following anyway. 

"I wouldn't be by myself." 

Gaara sat back, casting his gaze pointedly around the deserted cemetery. Lee sighed, a wet rattle in his throat. "All right. Point taken." 

He was angry, small and half-hearted, more shame that he'd taken still more of Gaara's time and worried him enough to leave his village than anything else. Growing swiftly bigger than that shame, however, was the comfort of a loving presence. He reached out and at once Gaara laced their fingers together. 

"You loved him," Gaara said. Lee stared at the glowing tip of the incense and nodded. 

"Like you love me." 

His gaze snapped up immediately, searching Gaara's face, unable to discern his emotions from the stoic set of his features. It wasn't the same, in the way a burning ember wasn't the same as a fire, but he understood the answer his lover sought. "Yes," he admitted. 

Was he angry? Reasonably he should be, Lee thought, considering he'd been lying by omission for their entire relationship. Yet it was impossible to tell, and the rarity of such an occasion these days only worsened the feeling inside him. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you." 

"Don't be. You weren't ready to talk about it." When his face changed at last it was only to fold down in worry, pulling Lee closer by their entwined hands to wrap his free arm around him. Lee fell into his grasp, head dropping against his shoulder. He was still crying, he realized belatedly.

"How did you..." Gai-sensei and Tenten knew. There was no way they couldn't find out after years of sharing a team, but it was a secret they wouldn't dare to share. 

"Remember the Rinne festival?" 

Of course he remembered. They'd been dancing around each other for months, feeling things neither of them were sure what to do with. It'd finally come to a head when Gaara visited for the festival and Lee just couldn't keep quiet anymore; he still recalled that moment with great fondness, though it was far from the emotional, exuberant confession he'd imagined it would be when he was younger. Gaara admitted he felt the same, but it brought forth the fundamental issue they'd struggled with and overcame years ago. "I don't know if I can love you the way you deserve," he'd said. "I've never loved anyone before." 

They both knew now that Gaara was, in fact, not only capable of love but brimming with it in his own way. He'd never had much chance to express it before they met and at the time he still saw himself the way others saw him when he was young: not quite human and incapable of being so. Nonetheless, he said he wanted to try and Lee was willing to take the risk, and in the end it was the best decision they ever made. But as he recalled the memory, turning it over in his mind in puzzlement, it dawned on him why Gaara brought it up in the first place. 

"Have you ever loved someone?" he'd asked. The trees above were rustling, a kaleidoscope of shadows dancing across his face. And Lee, who could lie by omission but never outright, had said "once." 

"Oh." He had plausible deniability at the time, his brief crush on Sakura well-known enough that he could fall back on it if asked. Gaara knew about _that_ by now, but he also knew Lee looked back on that as the blunders of a boy who only understood love in a fairytale fashion. 

Neji was different. Tempered by practicality as always, even in love, but it was real. It was, until. 

Pressed to Gaara's chest, he squeezed his fingers and reminded himself of the present. He wasn't alone. Gaara was still here, came all this way just to be here, but Neji was alone in his grave and he should be alone, too. He shouldn't be able to love someone else, he shouldn't love Gaara more than he ever got to love Neji. It wasn't right. 

He choked on a sob. 

Gaara released his hand; Lee grabbed mindlessly after him but he leaned back, cradling his face and forcing eye contact. There was a look in those eyes that he'd never seen before - searching and desperate, afraid. 

"Don't say things like that," he said in a tense voice. Did he say all that out loud? Lee didn't know, couldn't remember. Inside him he felt hollowed out, left only with vacuous desolation; his gaze dropped but Gaara tipped his chin up, meeting his eyes again. 

"Lee. Listen to me. You are drowning." 

"What?" he croaked dumbly. 

"Drowning. In your grief. It's overwhelming you," Gaara said. His hands softened at either side of Lee's face, but his words were still taut, trembling near the pauses. "Do you know what people do when they are drowning? I always thought they would call for help. It’s what you’d expect. But they can't. They can't even breathe, or keep their head above water long enough to try. Drowning is silent." 

Lee shook his head. "I don't…"

"You can't ask for help either. You're always like that - it is my least favorite thing about you." The corner of his mouth set into a fond curve and there was no edge to the words. "But you need help, Lee. I want to help you. You don't deserve to be alone and you aren't." 

He shut his eyes. Gaara's thumbs rubbed his temples, soothing a headache he hadn't noticed until now. It was a shock to witness just how badly he'd rattled his partner; he felt awful and he thought he might suffocate from all of the guilt he was carrying at this point. Maybe Gaara was right… it sure felt like he was drowning. 

Impeccably trained by years of deferring the words, Gaara stopped him the moment he opened his mouth. "Don't say 'I'm sorry.'" He paused, clearly deciding to dodge another obstacle. "And _do not_ say you're sorry for almost saying you're sorry. I won’t put up with that today." 

Lee managed a watery chuckle. "Am I really that predictable?"

"Sometimes." Gaara kissed him, and he could feel the relief in the gesture. Lee was loathe to let them part; when they did, though, he didn’t stray far, only inches apart as he turned his gaze on the silent headstone. The breeze ruffled the little pile of ash accumulated on its surface. 

Lee watched Gaara’s expression change and ease into a reserved serenity. He could see the smoldering tip of the incense reflected in his eyes, a shock of orange against robin egg blue. 

When Gaara finally spoke, it was soft. “I didn’t know him well, but I know he was a good man. He saved Naruto’s life and I have always been grateful to him for that. Now I know he loved you and I’m grateful for that too. You deserve to be loved and he was there when I couldn’t be.” 

“I…” Lee fell silent - he didn’t have enough cognitive function left to articulate how he felt upon hearing that, but it was good, something like relief and adoration and the cocooning warmth of knowing you are loved. He cupped Gaara’s jaw in his palm, kissed him when they faced each other again. For them, gestures had a language of their own that often spoke better than words. 

Evidently he wasn’t done yet, though, pulling away with a faintly apologetic smile. 

“Do you think Neji would want you to be alone?” 

The question stopped Lee’s mind in its tracks. Of the mess of thoughts that steadily clouded his mind over the past few months, that question was never a member. If it had been, perhaps it wouldn’t have gotten this bad (though that, he knew, was wishful thinking). 

Neji would tell him he’s being ridiculous. He’d pin Lee down with that angry look, arms crossed over his chest, and he’d tell him to move on with his life. Probably tease him about his taste in men, too. 

He let out a hysterical little laugh, which likely wasn’t the best way to respond to that question; Gaara looked faintly alarmed. Lee rubbed his eyes with a fist, grinning shakily. “No, he wouldn’t,” he agreed and Gaara visibly calmed, meeting him halfway in a tight embrace. 

“I’m glad you came,” Lee murmured against his neck. 

“I’ll always be where you need me.” The breath of his words was warm against his hair. “You’ve done more for me than I could ever repay. Let me do this for you.” 

Lee nodded. His eyes were wet again, though for a much better reason. “Okay. I love you.” 

“I love you, too.”

The incense was long burned, nothing but stick and ash now. He hadn’t realized how much time had passed; Gaara followed his gaze and inevitably his line of thought, mouth pursing into a frown. “We should go,” he said. “I met your sensei on the way here. I asked him to give us some privacy but he didn’t seem like the patient type.” 

At once Lee was on his feet. Gai-sensei would definitely be worried and for his sake - and Kakashi’s - it would be best not to keep him waiting. Whatever morose solitude had propelled him to avoid his sensei in the first place was gone, and the eagerness to reconnect that replaced it was far more familiar. Gaara muttered something about uncanny resemblances as he hefted his bag over his shoulder. When the Kazekage stood he looked over Neji’s headstone, his expression stolid. After a moment he nodded to himself, following Lee down the path towards the gate.

This time it was Gaara who reached out, and Lee who laced their fingers together. He didn’t know if he deserved this, but he wouldn’t give it up for the world. The oppressive silence of the cemetery seemed to soften around them. 

“Gaara?” he asked, and his lover hummed in acknowledgment. “Where did you learn all that? The stuff about drowning. You’ve never gone swimming.” 

There was a pause. Gaara shrugged. “When you went with me to Tea Country, you kept insisting on taking me to the beach. I figured it would be good to prepare.” 

“You were planning on swimming?” Lee’s jaw slackened. Damn, if only it hadn’t stormed the entire time they were there…

“No.” 

“Huh? But why…” If Lee didn’t know better, he would think he looked a little bashful. When he realized why it kindled a fire in his chest, the kind that didn’t devour a home but crackled merrily in its hearth, for now warding off the cold edge of his grief. “Oh...that’s really sweet, Gaara - but you didn’t need to worry, I am a very good swimmer!” 

Gaara gave him a severe look. “The book clearly stated that drowning can happen to anyone, even the most experienced. I’m beginning to think I was right to prepare.” 

Lee laughed, and it felt good. The wind caught the bells and their merry peals filled the air, and for one blessed moment their laughter sounded familiar.


End file.
